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By Kevin "K-MO" Mohammed

November 6th, 2015

 

       Seraph of the End (Owari no Serafu): Vampire Reign is written by the light novel author Takaya Kagami (The Legend of the Legendary Heroes, A Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives), with art by Yamato Yamamoto (Kure-nai, 9S -Nine S-), and storyboards by Daisuke Furuya (Howl's Moving Castle, Macross Zero.) Seraph of the End is also English licensed by Viz Media and published in Advanced Shonen Jump.

 STORY: The story takes place in 2016, four years after a terrible plague has supposedly taken the lives of all human beings over the age of 13. It is during this time that the vampires rose to power and enslaved all children as blood fodder in what they called "farms." Ever since, young Yuichiro Hyakuya, has desired to free himself and his 'family', other children from the Hyakuya Orphanage, from these blood farms. 

 

After a long and hard struggle one night, Yuichiro was able to escape from the farm but at the devastating cost of losing his entire family before his eyes including Mika, the oldest member of the family along with Yuichiro of whom Yuichiro felt close too. It is then that Yuichiro create a vendetta in his mind against all vampires, even if they may be several times stronger then the ordinary human being. Upon fleeing from the farm 
 

Yuichiro discovers a group of survivors who have survived the vampire attack and plauge, and have begun in the reconstruction of society as well as the building of an army to defend against various forms of creatures including vampire and other creatures of the like. Discovering this, Yuichiro makes a firm decision that he will join the Moon Demon Company, an elite vampire slaying unit, and achieve a Cursed Gear, a weapon that is formed by making a pact with a demon and the only way to kill a vampire. 

 

Review: The story reminds me vaguely of Attack on Titan, but the only reason for that being the main character's constant saying of "I AM GOING TO KILL ALL OF THE VAMPIRES!" But that is where the line is drawn. After that, the story fluctuates between light comedy to extremely dark and horrifying situations that just leave the reader saying "Oh God!" But, the mix in genre between the comedy, drama, and a slight tinge of  horror is what makes this series so very interesting.

 

 The characters are pretty nicely developed with interesting personalities and shows a unique form of encouragement in the relationships of each character towards one another. While the characters are not as much into detail about their actual individual aspects, it is assured that they will be brought more into detail and that the current chapters are more towards the purpose of outlining the setting and plot for the series as well as giving us a general background of our protagonist Yuichiro.  What I think was a good idea that was done in this series was how they actually forced Yuichiro to have a relationship with the other characters. In the second chapter, Yuichiro is punished with military suspension and is ordered to become a high-school student. He is then instructed that he must make at least one friend if he wishes for his suspension to end. This is a usually very shounen child-friendly thing to do, but is a basic that has not been used in a lot of recent series. The fact that this series prioritizes the development of its character over the advancement of the plot is what makes it interesting.

 

 Another example is the weapons that are wielded in this series, Cursed Gears. It was very vaguely shown, but to be able to use a Cursed Gear, one must be able to overccome the demon that lives within the weapon or die trying. The way in which as person overcomes the demon is by facing their own past or traumatic emotions and feelings that the demon tries too conjure thus creating their trial. If the idea of the Cursed Gear's trial were to continue on, this device in the plot of the series can be an easy gateway to finding out more about the past of each character without the usage of elongated flashbacks or extremely drawnout monolouges but instead shows a more twisted version of the character's past since it is still giving information, but also being manipulated by the demon.

 

 All in all this series seems pretty well-paced where it keeps the plot going steady and leaves the series to be long-running with plenty of potential. Mix that in with the potential the series has for massive character development, Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign definitely has a chance to make a very perfect story.

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign Review-

 Volume One

 

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